Women of the world,

Today I make to you a heartfelt plea to put it away. Put away that part of you that, with good reason, isn’t usually seen, and stop making the rest of us look stupid.

What am I talking about? Why, the hideous proliferation of denim shorts that this summer has brought, in numbers that surely signify the stage at which a trend eats itself and descends into megadeath phase. In my opinion, that tipping point can’t come quickly enough.

Walking through central London on one of the very hots days we’ve had recently, I tweeted this:

And I know that Chloe Sevigny agrees with me.

The difficulty with hating this trend is that it casts you either as Mary Whitehouse, everyone’s favourite prude, or (far worse) a curve-hating, sickened-by-actual-flesh misogynist. I am neither – although I’m aware the 13-year-old Spanish exchange kids that I goggled at for having at least two thirds of their cheeks hanging out of theirs thought I was an old square.

So don’t confuse my message: it’s one thing to say these women (and God knows who they actually are, because everybody I’ve spoken to about this is just as horrified by it as I am) should put their junk away because too much of it is out, and quite another to say they should put their junk away because it doesn’t look very nice.

Far be it from me to judge whether you have a nice enough tushie to parade it around in front of people. Some of the ones I’ve seen (yes, I’ll admit it) have caused me to philosophise that, were it my own back-end, I probably wouldn’t elect to front it all round town. Many of the ones I’ve seen have been just peachy; some of them have looked a bit like my own and have satisfied any latent yearning to have a go at the trend myself. No, my problem with denim shorts (nappies, thongs and dental floss, more like) is not an aesthetic one, it’s political.

And it’s a simple one to get your head around: walking round with your arse out show makes you look ridiculous. You don’t look like you’re in a sexy rap video, you look like the victim of a system that all too often conspires to convince women to make utter fools of themselves. What are you gaining from this but the smiles of perverts and the winces of people who feel sorry for you? Are those things cooling you down? I doubt it.

Is it liberating to flaunt what you have and not care? Perhaps you think so, but it’s of the same school of liberty that calling yourself a slut comes from – the sort of enlightenment that binds you ever closer to a crushing hegemony that hates you. Don’t fall for it.

So please – and I say this as someone who has worn hotpants in the past, rather than your correspondent in a burkha – think again. Take your lead from the moon, why not: a waning crescent is picturesque; a full moon makes everyone go mental; and it’s really weird when you can see either of them in daylight.